


Who Let the Dogs Out

by gogollescent



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-23
Updated: 2013-10-23
Packaged: 2017-12-30 07:06:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1015619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gogollescent/pseuds/gogollescent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He still didn’t really know how they'd spent their imprisonment. When he’d asked, Mai had said, It was fine. Ty Lee did backflips.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Who Let the Dogs Out

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this ages ago, for the prompt "Mai, Zuko and Ty Lee, chilling out together on Ember island post war. Instead of Azula they bring a really mean dogbear." It is not terribly interesting.

It was dark already on the island. Or almost dark: the navy sky lightened over grey water, but left the beach in gloom. Mai’s face under her bangs was study in cobalt, brushed with shadow and more shadow over that, and Zuko sort of wanted to kiss her—but all her attention was on the dogbear, her knees spread wide under her skirt and her hand held up for it to wetly sniff. “You’re so brave,” said Ty Lee, and Mai slid a look at her, reproving, that Zuko thought he understood. The last person Ty Lee had called brave was locked in a room that was always cold, far away from this inlet, this ocean, this still sun-drenched sand.

"I can’t believe you’re scared of dogs," said Mai flatly. Zuko wasn’t sure who she was talking to. " _I’m_ not scared of dogs," he offered, aware his case was a little unconvincing from his position safely on the other side of the firepit: but he hadn’t actually lit the fire yet, and neither of them were looking at him. It was strange to think he was the only person here with ready flame at his fingertips. Alone, they would have brought kindling, oil; they would have made a list of necessary supplies. He still didn’t really know how they'd spent their imprisonment. When he’d asked, Mai had said, It was fine. Ty Lee did backflips.

"It's so big!" Ty Lee said now. "And all those teeth, rrr. Besides," she added, some sly gold gleam running along the bottom of her black eyes, like light on the pooled edge of plum wine, "I don’t know where the pressure points are on a dogbear’s body."

She looked reflectively at her empty palms. “All that fur,” she said. “You’d need a club.”

"No one’s clubbing you," Mai murmured to the dog. Her voice was soothing. Zuko had previously heard her use that voice on her knives, and on him. The dogbear rested its blunt nose against her fingers and she reached up to scratch behind one rounded ear. It whined. "Good girl," said Mai, scratching.

Zuko, a little sulkily, set the logs on fire. Color spilled everywhere. Red, sort of—but closer to the Airbenders' resurrected orange. “Wow!” said Ty Lee, and Mai smiled without lifting her face.

Zuko was fairly sure that he’d missed something. “Where did you even find that stupid dog?” he said, while the flames lapped the rim of the pit in savage tongues. Mai shook her head.

"She got it in town," said Ty Lee. "It was attacking these adorable babies, but she scared it off. And then it followed us."

"The— it  _attacked babies_?”

"Don’t be stupid, Zuko," said Mai. "They were hurting it."

He looked from her to Ty Lee and back. Ty Lee shrugged, a beautiful movement, the twitch of her shoulders lifting her arms and unrolling like a banner down her back.

The dogbear’s eyes were orange in the firelight. “ _Babies_ ,” Zuko muttered, and saw its lip peel to bare its white teeth.

"Anyway," said Mai, "I thought it would be fun. There aren’t any volleyball players around, but we can play fetch."

Zuko imagined his father, lobbing out a frozen ball of ice with Aang stuck in the middle, telling Zuko to  _fetch! Fetch!_ The picture was so sharp and apparent in his mind that despite himself he laughed. “You know, whatever I was expecting here, it was not this.”

"What were you expecting?" said Ty Lee. She sounded innocent; she didn’t always. Her curls cast jumpy shadows on her broad, soft face. "Do you have some conflict-driven confessions to make about your inner turmoil? We’re here for you. You know that."

Time was, he would have been frustrated and indignant, and easily coaxed. He still was, actually, all of those things, but his hands were only fisted and he could feel the cold of the evening as if from a distance, layers of skin removed. His whole body might have become the scar. Was that a bad sign? He couldn’t tell. He put his bare feet sideways on the sand, letting its heat cling to his anklebones. There was a thin surface layer, now, of cold grains, and beneath that the day’s warmth lingered like touch. “That’s not what I meant,” he said, although maybe it was—he wouldn’t mind, exactly, hearing them go over their issues. It seemed like he’d changed so much since victory that he should measure up, should explore all the places the anger had left spacious in him, and he couldn’t compare himself to Aang or even Katara, who half a year ago had been fighting desperately for a peace he hadn’t imagined. Azula was in prison, her skin permanently pale, her blood chased by chill air from all her surfaces. The shadows under her eyes showed blue. They’d all been to visit her, on their own, not speaking to the others but knowing anyway, and look how that had gone.

Next time, he thought, we should coordinate.  

He stood up. His long toes found his balance. The dogbear turned out of Mai’s caress and looked at him, its eyes flashingly dark, and when he dropped his hand to his robed side it sprang like something thrown. He didn’t understand what was happening until he was already on his back, the sand sheared off by impact, scrambling for ground that wasn’t pre-occupied by paws, and he heard Ty Lee scream—

Mai dragged it off. He hadn’t noticed, earlier, that it was wearing a plain rope collar. He lay flat on his back, breathing hard, and in the silence they stared at each other like they would never seen one another again. Her clear light eyes were the thin yellow of a mature bruise, or a winter sunset; they seemed to have broken free from the glow of the fire, and edged towards the long sea. He could hear Ty Lee, behind them, but to him the only real sounds seemed to be the defeated snarls of the dogbear, and the popping of fenced-in flames.


End file.
